Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis and Orpheus talked for several years after their awkward reunion.

Orpheus praised Gravis' Battle-Strength especially, telling him that when Gravis had pulled that one stunt, even Orpheus had felt a feeling of mortal danger.

"Haha, I still remember when I first met you," Orpheus said with a bright smile while sipping some coffee. "You were only a Body Tempering Cultivator. In fact, you couldn't even be truly called a Cultivator."

"Just that one teacher you had who had been in the Unity Realm had already been worlds above you. And now, look at you! You're powerful enough to even make me feel threatened. It's almost unbelievable that you achieved all of that in only a bit more than a million years."

Gravis only smiled. "I still remember when I saw you back then. I had only heard about the first four Realms, and the Unity Realm truly felt like something that I would never reach in my life."

"And then, I met you, and you were on a level of power I couldn't even comprehend. I had no idea how powerful you actually were. I knew that you were powerful, but I didn't know how powerful."

That's when Gravis started laughing. "I still remember when I couldn't control my Will-Aura, and I used it on that one teacher. What was his name? Forneus, I think? Of course, he also suppressed me, but I wonder how he must have felt when you suddenly showed up."

"I wonder how it feels like to be reprimanded by a Peak Star God while only being a Unity Realm Cultivator," Gravis said with a smile.

Orpheus only smiled bitterly. "I still remember Forneus, which is surprising since he was only a Unity Realm Cultivator. He was a subordinate of my subordinate of my subordinate. Yet, whenever he interacted with me, he never really showed any fear. He only showed boredom and annoyance. That's quite admirable for someone of his level."

Gravis nodded. He still remembered that his teacher back then had even given Orpheus some attitude, which was shocking beyond belief considering the difference in their power.

"By the way, what did you do all day in your job?" Gravis asked.

"Mainly just managing the overall development of the different departments," Orpheus explained. "My subordinates were the ones that trained all the Researchers. I only looked at the different Cultivators in training from time to time to evaluate their growth."

"After that, my subordinates give me all the reports, and I have to find an effective way to improve the results without going over budget. I also had to evaluate all the different techniques the Researchers brought back and decide if they were marketable or not," Orpheus explained.

"Speaking of," Gravis interjected. "How does the Research Institute even make their money? I know that they sell techniques, but I don't see how that's viable. After all, basically everything has to do with Laws at the Unity Realm or higher."

Orpheus only leaned back. "It's not only about the techniques. It's also about ways of smithing, alchemy, Sect management, disciple training, Law combinations, and Form Laws."

"For example," Orpheus said as he leaned forward again. "You have a very powerful Form Law. How did you create that? By comprehending 14 different level seven Laws and combining them with the Emotional Laws."

"However, how much from these 14 level seven Battle-Laws are you actually using? You're probably only using 10% per Law at most. So, what about the remaining 90%? It's basically a waste since you're only using the best 10%."

"Comprehending a Form Law via comprehending several Battle-Laws is the purest and oldest way to create them, but that's not what most powerful Sects are interested in."

"A Form Law is only one aspect of your power, and investing so much time into it is a huge waste of resources for them."

"That's where the Resource Institute comes into play. We go through a Cultivator's memories and check out all of their facets. Their personality, priorities, fighting style, and so on, basically everything."

"Then, we get some of our Researchers to create a Form Law for them. All of our Researchers have gone through their journey the hard way, making them the best people for the job. Researchers didn't have much help from anyone in the highest world, and they received nearly no resources from our world. That makes them pure."

"When someone needs a Form Law, a team of Researchers gathers that knows basically all the Elemental Battle-Laws for a given level of power. The details of the customer are put on display in front of all of them, and they start creating a Form Law perfectly suited for that Cultivator."

"When everything has been ironed out, the Researchers transform the newly created Form Law from an aggregate of Law principles into a technique and give it to the customer. With that method, the customer gets a perfectly suited Form Law nearly instantaneously, and the best part is that their Law Comprehension hasn't even been weakened. After all, they only learned a technique, not a Law."

"In a way, the really powerful Sects could do the same thing on their own, but it would still be a waste of resources. The true geniuses of the Sect would comprehend their Laws on their own, which meant that they didn't need that service, while the normal Cultivators are just that, normal Cultivators."

"Who would willingly force ten of their Ancestral God commanders to come up with a level seven Form Law for a Star God that isn't even sure to become truly powerful in the future?"

"No one," Orpheus added with a smile. "Additionally, these Ancestral Gods wouldn't be very used to this task, and they would feel quite some frustration towards their Sect for forcing them to do something so idiotic."

"Of course, the process I have just described to you is our most exclusive one, and it's very expensive. Only Sects that are comfortably in the Ancestral God Realm buy that service in bulk."

Gravis was intrigued by what Orpheus was telling him. Gravis hadn't even thought about tailor-making a Form Law for someone else. He had always assumed that everyone had to comprehend their Form Laws on their own.

"What about the Eternal Fire Sect?" Gravis asked.

"Always have been customers, always will be customers," Orpheus said with a chuckle. "The Eternal Fire Sect is full of politicians and strategists, and they know exactly how cost-efficient this process is. The Eternal Fire Sect is a gigantic client."

"In fact, after staying here for a while, I noticed that the Eternal Fire Sect spends nearly 10% of their wealth on exactly these kinds of services. That's a lot."

Gravis nodded. "That's really a lot."

No wonder the Research Institute was so big. They got 10% of the Eternal Fire Sect's wealth, and other powerful Sects probably also gave just as much to them.

Probably just a hundred Researchers from the Research Institute were gathering more God Stones than the entire Eternal Fire Sect.

"But that service is not even 20% of the Research Institute's revenue," Orpheus explained.

"Oh?" Gravis uttered with interest.

Orpheus nodded. "Techniques for people below the Immortal Realm are where it's at."

Gravis looked with confusion at Orpheus.

"You've created plenty of techniques, Gravis," Orpheus said. "Lightning Crescent, Mortality, Samsara, pre-dodging, lightning acceleration, all that stuff."

"Of course, the latter two are no longer relevant to you right now, but they have been relevant in the past, and Cultivators in the lower ranges of power would still benefit from them."

"That's where the Research Institute shines. The Research Institute has billions of shops all over the world, and they have even more in the other worlds."

"Other worlds?" Gravis asked in surprise. "You do business in other worlds?"

Orpheus nodded. "A lot of Cultivators abandon their path to power, but they are not nearly powerful enough to live in luxury in our world. The Research Institute has access to all the worlds, and it's relatively cheap for us to send people there."

"The Research Institute allows these Cultivators to live in a place where they are powerful while putting them under restrictions. They are not allowed to initiate conflict, and they are not allowed to ascend."

"Someone in the Self Stage of the Spirit Forming Realm, for example, will be sent to a lower world to open a shop. Their shop receives an incredible number of copies for millions of techniques, and they are allowed to sell them at standard prices."

"The owner of the shop is allowed to spend 20% of the money on whatever they wanted while 80% goes to the Research Institute."

"Then, when the Research institute notices that the shop owner has died, they send a collector, who will analyze everything that has happened and will take their share."

"Most of the time, the dead shop owner will have created a gigantic empire of shops that sell our techniques, and the new heads of these shops are smart enough not to anger the collector most of the time."

"You have no idea how much money is being made with that method, Gravis. It's actually crazy," Orpheus said with a chuckle. "For example, the Research Institute has over 100 billion collectors that are constantly doing nothing but collecting money and sending people to other worlds."

"Even more, the applications for being a shop owner vastly outnumber the open positions, which allows us to weed out the untrustworthy people. That's why everything is running so smoothly."

Gravis only nodded with a surprised expression.

Gravis had always asked himself how techniques of a lower or middle world could be sold in the highest world. After all, wasn't everyone in this world already way more advanced?

However, the techniques weren't sold to the highest world, but to other worlds of similar level.

In essence, the Research Institute was equalizing the potential and opportunity for all the Cultivators in all the worlds with their techniques.

They were shaping the surroundings and lives of an incredible number of Ascenders.

When the Ascenders reached the highest world and heard of the Research Institute, they wouldn't even know that they had been their customer ever since they had been born.

The Research Institute was in nearly all the worlds.

That really was a lot of money and power!